Taskwarrior

Taskwarrior is a lightweight, command‑line driven task manager written in C++ that persists data to plain text files or SQLite. It exposes a rich, declarative query language and a set of command‑line utilities that can be scripted or wrapped by other programs. The core philosophy is “do what you need, then get out of the way,” which translates into a minimal runtime footprint and an API that can be composed with other tools (e.g., jq, awk, or custom shell scripts). Developers who need a high‑performance, deterministic task engine without the overhead of a web stack often choose Taskwarrior for its predictable behavior and extensible data model.

Key Features

• Declarative filtering & reporting – Tasks are queried with a syntax similar to SQL, allowing complex predicates (+project:dev & !completed) that can be reused in custom reports.
• Project & tag hierarchy – Projects are organized as a tree; tags can be attached to any task, enabling multi‑dimensional categorization.
• Time tracking – Integrated with Timewarrior, it can record start/stop times and compute effort per task or project.
• Recurring tasks & alarms – Supports cron‑style recurrence and file‑based alarm notifications that can trigger scripts or system notifications.
• Extensible command set – The task binary accepts custom plugins written in C, Python, or any language that can read/write the task database.

Technical Stack

Taskwarrior ships as a single binary (task) that reads its configuration from ~/.taskrc. The binary parses the task database, applies filters, and writes back changes atomically. When SQLite is enabled, all reads/writes go through the native driver; otherwise, the text format is line‑oriented and lock‑free for concurrent reads.

Core Capabilities & APIs

• Command‑line API – Every task subcommand (add, modify, delete, report) is a first‑class API that can be invoked from shell scripts or HTTP wrappers.
• JSON output – task _json returns the full task list as JSON, enabling integration with web services or other programming languages.
• Filter language – The filter syntax (+project:dev & !completed) is parsed into an abstract syntax tree, which can be reused by third‑party parsers.
• Hooks – Pre/post hooks (pre:, post:) allow developers to inject scripts before or after any command, facilitating CI pipelines or custom workflows.
• RESTful wrappers – While Taskwarrior itself is CLI‑centric, community projects expose REST endpoints (e.g., taskd server) that translate HTTP calls into CLI commands.

Deployment & Infrastructure

Taskwarrior is intentionally minimal: it requires only a POSIX‑compatible shell and the task binary. For self‑hosting, developers can:

• Containerize – A Docker image (ghcr.io/taskwarrior/task:latest) contains the binary and a minimal base OS, making it trivial to deploy in Kubernetes or Docker‑Compose setups.
• Scale horizontally – Since each instance writes to its own database, scaling is achieved by sharding tasks per user or project and synchronizing via taskd or a custom sync layer.
• High availability – The optional SQLite backend can be replicated using sqlite-sync or a shared filesystem; the text format is file‑based and can be versioned in Git for lightweight collaboration.

Integration & Extensibility

• Plugin architecture – Developers can write plugins in C++ or any language that writes to the task database. The task binary discovers plugins at runtime via a $PATH lookup.
• Webhooks & notifications – Hooks can trigger HTTP callbacks, send emails, or push to messaging platforms (Slack, Discord) when a task status changes.
• Custom reports – The report command accepts user‑defined templates written in a lightweight templating language, allowing dynamic PDF or HTML exports.
• Timewarrior & Taskshell – Native integration with the time‑tracking tool Timewarrior and shell extension Taskshell, enabling command chaining and context switching.

Developer Experience

• Configuration – The .taskrc file is highly expressive, supporting variable substitution, conditional blocks, and command aliases. Documentation provides exhaustive examples for advanced use.
• Community & Support – An active mailing list, IRC channel (#taskwarrior on Libera.Chat), and bi‑weekly community meetings foster rapid issue resolution. The codebase is open source under GPLv3, encouraging contributions.
• Testing & CI – The upstream repository includes a comprehensive test matrix across Linux, macOS, and Windows (via WSL), ensuring reliability for developers targeting diverse platforms.

Use Cases

1. Developer Task Tracking – Integrate task into CI pipelines to flag overdue tests or code reviews.
2. Project Management for Small Teams – Use